The Temperate Northern Pacific is a biogeographic

Biogeography

Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species , organisms, and ecosystems in space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities vary in a highly regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area...

 region of the Earth's seas, comprising the temperate waters of the northern Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

.

The Temperate Northern Pacific connects, via the Bering Sea

Bering Sea

The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....

, to the Arctic marine realm, which includes the polar waters of the Arctic Sea. To the south, it transitions to the tropical marine realms of the Pacific, including the Tropical Eastern Pacific

Tropical Eastern Pacific

The Tropical Eastern Pacific is one of the twelve marine realms that cover the shallow oceans of the world. The Tropical Eastern Pacific extends along the Pacific Coast of the Americas, from the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula in the north to northern Peru in the south...

 along the Pacific coast of the Americas, the Eastern Indo-Pacific in the central Pacific Ocean, and the Central Indo-Pacific

Central Indo-Pacific

The Central Indo-Pacific is a biogeographic region of the Earth's seas, comprising the tropical waters of the western Pacific Ocean, the eastern Indian Ocean, and the connecting seas....

 of the western Pacific basin. The Taiwan Strait

Taiwan Strait

The Taiwan Strait or Formosa Strait, formerly known as the Black Ditch, is a 180-km-wide strait separating Mainland China and Taiwan. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to East China Sea to the northeast...

 forms the boundary between the Temperate Northern Pacific and the Central Indo-Pacific.

Characteristic fauna include the Pacific salmon and trout (Oncorhynchus

Oncorhynchus

Oncorhynchus is a genus of fish in the family Salmonidae; it contains the Pacific salmons and Pacific trouts. The name of the genus is derived from the Greek onkos and rynchos , in reference to the hooked jaws of males in the mating season .-Range:Salmon and trout with ranges generally in waters...

spp.), Gray Whale

Gray Whale

The gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus, is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of about , a weight of , and lives 50–70 years. The common name of the whale comes from the gray patches and white mottling on its dark skin. Gray whales were...

 (Eschrichtius robustus), and North Pacific Right Whale

North Pacific Right Whale

The North Pacific right whale is a very large, robust baleen whale species that is now extremely rare and endangered. The Northeast Pacific subpopulation, that summers in the southeastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, may have no more than 50 animals...

 (Eubalaena japonica).

Subdivisions

The Temperate Northern Pacific is further subdivided into marine provinces, and the marine provinces divided into marine ecoregions:

Cold Temperate Northwest Pacific

• Sea of Okhotsk
  Sea of Okhotsk
  The Sea of Okhotsk is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, lying between the Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, the island of Hokkaidō to the far south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a long stretch of eastern Siberian coast along the west and...
  
  
• Kamchatka Shelf and Coast
• Oyashio Current
  Oyashio Current
  , also known as Oya Siwo, Okhotsk or the Kurile current, is a cold subarctic ocean current that flows south and circulates counterclockwise in the western North Pacific Ocean. It collides with the Kuroshio Current off the eastern shore of Japan to form the North Pacific Current...
  
  
• Northern Honshu
• Sea of Japan
  Sea of Japan
  The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, between the Asian mainland, the Japanese archipelago and Sakhalin. It is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific...
  
  
• Yellow Sea
  Yellow Sea
  The Yellow Sea is the name given to the northern part of the East China Sea, which is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It is located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula. Its name comes from the sand particles from Gobi Desert sand storms that turn the surface of the water golden...
  
  

Cold Temperate Northeast Pacific

• Aleutian Islands
• Gulf of Alaska
  Gulf of Alaska
  The Gulf of Alaska is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the east, where Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage are found.The entire shoreline of the Gulf is...
  
  
• North American Pacific Fjordland
• Puget Trough/Georgia Basin
• Oregon, Washington, Vancouver Coast and Shelf
• Northern California

Warm Temperate Northeast Pacific

• Southern California Bight
  Southern California Bight
  The Southern California Bight includes coastal southern California, the Channel Islands and part of the Pacific Ocean.Within the Southern California bight lie the traditional territories of the Chumash and the Gabrieliño. These two cultures are considered the epitome of hunter-gatherer complexity...
  
  
• Cortezian
• Magdalena Transition